Archive of Our Own

You tighten your grip on the two lunch pails you have in hand and make your way to meander throughout the floor. You pass by various construction workers scattered throughout the space. The older gentlemen working on the site, whom you’ve grown to be familiar with, greet you with a nod and a smile, which you return with a small smile of your own. You don’t speak to them too often since you don’t want to disturb their work, but they’ve always treated you kindly, helping to put your nerves at ease.

As you walk further into the site, you keep your gaze straight ahead to avoid catching the eyes of your older brother’s less pleasant coworkers. Lance- you’ve learned his name is from your brother when you asked who the resident dickhead was- and his little clique pause from their work to eye you up and down. You don’t look in his direction, but through your peripheral vision, you can see him and his buddies making comments back and forth amongst themselves, presumably about you. 

Your knuckles nearly go white with how hard you're gripping the handles of the lunch pails you’re holding. Your frame is rigid as you walk by them, hoping that they won’t say anything to you. Thankfully, Lance and none of his friends try to engage in conversation with you, and you’re able to make it to your brother’s side with no problem.

“Hey!” you say, a little out of breath as you stand a safe few feet away from your older brother, steering clear of the large pile of debris near his feet.

You haven’t brought up how occasionally, Lance and his friends like to hassle you to your brother. It’s not that you don’t feel comfortable confiding in him about it, but you don’t want to cause any problems for him. Your brother has enough to worry about, and you’re not going to add another item to his list. As long as he knows Lance is a fucking asshole and isn’t friends with him, you can tolerate Lance’s behavior.

“Yo.” He nods, acknowledging your presence, before dropping the hammer he’s holding off to the side. You cringe at the sound it makes when it connects with the concrete ground.

“You should be more careful,” you scold him as he takes off his hard hat and safety glasses, placing them down on an elevated surface near where his work area is. You bend down to pick up the hammer he carelessly tossed onto the ground and place them beside his hard hat and work goggles. You stand back up, wiping off any dust that managed to get onto your pants.“What if you break the hammer or something?”

He rolls his eyes at you and takes the lunch pails you have in an outstretched hand toward him. “It’s not going to break.”

“It could,” you counter.

He walks by you, and you trail after him, following him through the work site until you get to the elevator, so you can get up to the part of the building where you normally eat together. “It wouldn’t.”

“Whatever you say.” The elevator doors open up with a ding. You hop in after your brother walks through and press the button for one of the upper floors. You stand in comfortable silence, shifting your weight back and forth on the balls of your feet, and walk out of the elevator first when it brings you to your desired floor.

“What’d you bring?” your brother says, lifting up the lunch pail that you designated as his. It’s one of those old-school metal ones meant for kids, but you thought it was too cute and bought one for both of you. You gave him the one you liked less, but he doesn’t need to know that.

“Nothing too fancy. I made a sandwich and then tossed in a container of some carrots and ranch and a bag of chips,” you shrug, plopping down onto the hard slab of concrete. You nod when your brother thanks you for making his lunch and look out at the city’s skyline. It’s not the prettiest thing in the world, but you like the view plenty. The air up here is cool and crisp, and you take a deep inhale, enjoying how it wakes you up a little more.

Your head jerks when you hear the elevator ring and open, but your tense frame relaxes when you realize it’s just Pete.

Your brother’s never talked to him, says that he’s never even heard the man speak. The only reason he even knows his name is because the foreman introduced him to the others on his first day at the site. Your brother thinks he’s a little off, but you think Pete seems like a nice enough guy. You can respect the fact he’s a quiet guy who keeps to himself, just there to do his job.

You’ll admit that he does make you a little nervous. Not in the way that Lance or his friends make you feel, not at all like that. Pete’s never made you feel uncomfortable, but he’s a big guy. You’ve seen him swinging his sledgehammer around when you arrive at the worksite: that man is an actual machine. He’s a solid mass of muscle, broad in every sense of the word. Given how physically imposing he is (and how quiet and mysterious he is), it’s no surprise that you find him just a little bit intimidating. (Read: A lot intimidating.)

Your brother keeps you up-to-date on all the gossip and rumors that go around his workplace. He’s told you that nobody knows much about Pete, but the man works well into the night and that apparently the only time he takes a break is to eat lunch. You may not know Pete very well, but when your brother told you that, a smidge of worry flared up in your chest. You hope that he’s looking after himself.

Your eyes follow his form as he walks out of the elevator and strides toward the opposite end of the open area you’re occupying and sits down.

“Stop staring and hurry up and eat your lunch. Don’t you have plans for later today?”

You snap out of your daze turn your head back around to face your brother, who’s dangling your lunch box in front of your face. You snatch it out of his hand with a huff as warmth crawls up your neck.

“Was I really staring?” you reply to his question with one of your own. You place your lunch pail flat on your lap to undo the latches on the top. You open up the reusable bag you packed your sandwich in and take a bite. Not too bad, you think as you chew. Then again, it would be pretty hard to fuck up a regular ole sandwich.

Your brother munches on the bag of chips you threw into his lunch box. “Yeah, kinda rude, don’t you think?”

A wave of embarrassment washes over you even though you know your brother is just teasing you. “Quit it,” you grumble, lowering your head and focusing your attention on your sandwich. “I didn’t mean to be rude.”

Your brother makes a disbelieving noise in the back of his throat.

“Stop, you know I didn’t.” You lift your head and point an accusatory finger at his chest. “You don’t think he thinks that was rude of me do you?” you ask, unable to help yourself. You anxiously gnaw on the inside of your cheek; you really hope that Pete didn’t think you were ogling him or anything. You just think he’s an interesting person and you sorta zoned out looking in his direction.

“I don’t think he thinks much of anything,” your brother replies, shrugging his shoulders. He crumples up his now empty chip bag and tosses it back into the lunch box. He’s torn through all his food already while you’re only halfway through your sandwich. His appetite is something to be feared, you think. Maybe, you ought to pack him an extra sandwich to make sure he doesn’t go hungry.

“I don’t think that’s true,” you retort, feeling the need to defend Pete against your brother’s casual remark. He raises a brow at your harsh tone. “People who are quiet got a lot on their mind. Probably too much,” you explain, trailing off at the end. You turn your head slightly to look in Pete’s direction. Although you know he willingly chooses to stay separate from the others, rebuffing your brother’s, and his other coworkers’, attempts at conversation, you can’t help but think that he might be lonely as you gaze at the broad expanse of his back.

“Speaking from experience?”

“Shut up,” you huff, playfully shoving your brother in the shoulder, which prompts him to shove you back harder. You almost topple off of the spot where you’re precariously perched and give your brother a death glare.

You two bicker back and forth as you continue to munch on the rest of your lunch. You swat your brother’s hand away when he attempts to steal bits of your snacks from time to time.

Too engaged in talking, the look that Frank casts your way goes unnoticed by both of you. He doesn’t know either of you too well. He’s never spoken to your brother before, never felt inclined to speak to him really, but Frank’s overheard him talking about you to his friends. From what he’s heard and what he’s seen, you seem like a sweet kid.

The way you and your brother care for one another is evident in how you interact. The corner of Frank’s lip curls slightly in amusement when you eventually allow your brother to nibble on the rest of your chips with a low-hanging head that screams of defeat. There’s so much love, familial love, between you. It’s bittersweet to witness, so Frank turns his head away and looks at the dull skyline once more with his heart a little heavier than before.

Another day, another visit to the worksite.

The elevator doors open up to your brother’s floor with a short ding and a rattling shudder. You’d think that for a new building that’s being constructed, the elevator wouldn’t be so rickety. You always feel like it’s about to collapse in on you with every groan and clang it makes, so you hurriedly step out of the compartment and onto the wooden platform that leads you to the rest of the floor. One of these days, you’ll muster up the energy to take the stairs, but today was not that day.

You smooth down the creases in your pants, causing your pair of metal lunch boxes in your other hand to bump against each other. Your brother better appreciate his lunch today because you put extra effort into it for the sake of trying something new.

You follow your usual path through the building, waving a little hello to the kind, older men who smile at you in greeting. You slow down when you see Lance and his friends crowded around the area where Pete works, shielding yourself slightly around the corner of the wall that Pete’s currently breaking down to not be seen. Your lips twist into a frown and your brows pinch together when you hear the callous words they casually toss Pete’s way, purposely taunting and riling him up. They’re such pieces of shit.

You desperately want to say something, anything, but your tongue lies heavy in your mouth. As much as you hate to admit it, Lance and his dumbass friends scare you. You hate the little comments they make about you and the appraising looks they give you, all of which make you feel incredibly uncomfortable in your skin.

Your brother has also told you to steer clear of Lance and his group as much as possible. Not only are they fucking assholes, but he’s heard rumors that they’re involved in less than savory activities, illegal shit. They’re just rumors, but he wanted you to be extra cautious around them.

More and more anger floods your system with each demeaning and stupid comment they make. Your knuckles go white with how harsh your grip is on the lunch boxes you packed. The handles dig into your palm, indenting your palms.

You flinch when Lance suddenly kicks Pete’s lunchbox, sending its contents flying across the concrete. You repress the urge to gasp, bringing a hand to cover your mouth and stifle the startled noise that left your lips. You’re grateful that the worksite is always noisy as shit because nobody notices the embarrassing squeak you made.

Poking your head slightly around the corner again, you resume watching the altercation that’s occurring. Then again, you guess it’s not much of an argument if Pete refuses to dignify any of Lance’s taunts and jeers with a response.

Pete pauses from his endless sledgehammering and turns to face Lance. It’s the first time during this encounter that he’s even acknowledged Lance’s presence.

“There he is,” Lance says, sauntering up to Pete, getting up in his face.

The veins on the back of Pete’s hand become more pronounced as his grip on his tool tightens. You wonder if he’s going to lose his temper now and just go to town whaling on Lance. To be honest, you think he would be warranted in doing so. You’d also love to see Lance get knocked a peg or two and get his ass fucking handed to him. Unfortunately, Pete doesn’t beat the fuck out of Lance and chooses to remain silent. You admire his ability to keep his composure. It’s impressive.

“You don’t want me for an enemy, man,” Lance states before walking away from Pete and finally leaving him alone. Not before he stomps on the plastic bag containing Pete’s lunch, squishing the sandwich inside the baggie and rendering it inedible.

You watch the rest of Lance’s little clique follow after him. When your gaze falls back onto Pete again, you accidentally catch his eye. His face is blank, devoid of any emotions, beside the slight raise of his brow.

Your eyes widen in surprise and embarrassment wells up inside of you for getting caught for eavesdropping, even if the one-sided conversation wasn’t exactly private. A rush of molten heat sprawls up your neck. Your mouth opens and closes, and you stand there stammering as your thoughts race to try and come up with some sort of explanation or excuse for your behavior.

You ultimately come up with nothing and quickly turn on your foot to scurry past Pete to find your brother. When you spot him, you call out his name and rush to his side. As soon as he rids himself of whatever tool he was using and the protective gear he was wearing, you lock your arm around his and tug him toward the elevator. You make sure to take a different path through the building this time to ensure you won’t pass by Pete.

“What’s up with you?” your brother questions, quick to notice your strange behavior. You normally make him hold your lunch boxes, claiming that it’s only fair he does so because you take the time and effort to put your meals together. Right now, you’re gripping them for dear life.

“Nothing,” you snap as you step into the elevator. You press the button for the floor you typically have lunch on and jam your finger against the close button over and over, willing the damn elevator to close faster.

Your brother gives you a doubtful look and you easily relent. “I did something embarrassing,” you confess. At the reminder of what you did only moments ago, you loudly groan, burying your face into your hands.

“How embarrassing?” Your brother cocks a brow at you as he follows you out of the elevator.

“Really fucking embarrassing,” you moan in despair. You roughly drop your weight down onto the hard slab of concrete you two like to use as a seat, placing the lunch boxes to rest on your lap. You don’t even wince at the harsh impact, too preoccupied with your frazzled nerves. Your brother eases himself to sit down beside you.

“It can’t be that bad,” your brother says, doing his best to comfort you. He awkwardly pats you on the back before lowering his hand again.

You take a long, deep breath. The frigid air helps to calm your racing thoughts and ground you as you stare out into the city’s skyline. You nervously smooth your hands over the face of the top lunchbox in your lap. Your palms run over the ridges of the design crafted in the metal in a rhythmic motion. You tear your gaze away from the cityscape to look at your older brother.

“I got caught eavesdropping on Lance and his friends hassling Pete by Pete. And then when he caught me, I ran away without saying anything.”

Your brother deeply sighs before saying your name, taking the time to stress the last syllable and draw it out for longer than you’d like. You wince at his tone.

“I know! I know! I just panicked,” you whine. You gesture wildly by waving your hands around above your head. You place them on the concrete slab behind you and lean back onto them, feeling little granules of debris dig into the flesh of your palms. You tilt your head back and stare straight up into the sky. It’s cloudy today. It usually is. “I feel like shit for doing it.”

“For what? Eavesdropping or getting caught?” your brother asks, genuinely interested in what exactly it is you’re feeling guilty about. You let him slip his lunchbox off of your lap onto his. His lunch break will only last for so long, so he should get started on eating.

“Both, but I feel really bad for not saying anything when he caught me,” you admit. You’re not self-important enough to think that Pete really cares about what you did, but you feel super shitty for your rude behavior. And for not sticking up for him when you could have. (Not that you could have exactly done anything, but it’s the thought that counts.)

“Well, here’s your chance to say something,” he casually says with a mouthful of food, gesturing in the direction of the elevator. You pull a face in disgust that you got a glimpse of the chewed-up food in your brother’s mouth. You’re so caught up in your revulsion that it takes you a moment to register what he said.

“What?” you blurt out, immediately twisting your head around to survey the floor. Your eyes dart back and forth until they land on Pete’s form, which grows smaller and smaller as he walks further away from the elevator toward his favored spot to sit and eat lunch. Your stomach turns uncomfortably at the lack of his plastic lunchbox in his hands. “What should I do?” 

You turn your attention to your brother and anxiously await his answer. He only gives you a half-hearted shrug and takes another bite of the food you prepared for him. 

“Do whatever you want,” he replies. You audibly groan at how just unhelpful your brother can be at times when you really need his advice. You drag a hand across the lower half of your face, absentmindedly rubbing the curve of your jaw as you consider what you want to do since your brother is absolutely no help. 

Your gaze drifts to the lunch box in your lap- your lunch box- and it hits you what you should do. 

“I’ll be right back,” you tell your brother as you stumble off of the concrete slab you’re perched on in your haste to get up. You almost drop your lunch box in your frenzy of movements, but luckily, it manages to remain unscathed. Your brother puts his hand up in acknowledgment and continues to shovel food into his mouth. 

Your feet move way faster than your thoughts because before you can question what you’re doing or rehearse what you want to say, you’ve already reached what you’ve mentally designated as Pete’s side of the floor. 

Pete doesn’t turn around to face you when you stop short less than a few feet behind him, at the bottom of the pile of cinder blocks he’s seated upon. He continues gazing out at the view, only angling his head slightly in your direction when you slowly take a few cautious steps closer- still a respectable distance away, but much closer to the man than you’ve ever been. You lower yourself down to sit on the corner of cinder blocks furthest away from Pete and fiddle with the lunch box now in your lap.

You should have thought more about what you wanted to say because once again, you’re coming up on empty for words. You moved before you could think too much about it, and now that you’re no longer moving, you’re really regretting your decision of acting on impulse before thinking.

You feel like the awkwardness between you is growing by the second so you open your mouth to cut the tension.

“Uh,” is the first thing that comes out of your mouth, and you want to bang your head against a wall for how unintelligible and unsure you sound. Your hands curl into fists, the blunt edge of your fingernails dig into your palms. You clear your throat to try and clear your mind. “I wanted to apologize to you, Mr. Castiglione. For uh eavesdropping on you and for running away without saying anything when you caught me and for what Lance did to your lunch.” The words quickly rush off of your tongue, blurring into one another. You heat up when you realize how fast you were talking.

When Pete doesn’t reply, you continue to nervously ramble. “And uh since you don’t have a lunch, I thought you could use one, so I wanted to offer you mine. I made it myself, and I like to think I’m a decent cook, but if you don’t want it, that’s totally okay and I wouldn’t be offended—”

“Breathe, kid.” 

You cut yourself off at Pete’s words and jerk your head up to look at him. Your eyes widen: you’re surprised that he responded to you. It’s the first time you’ve ever heard him talk. He has a nice voice, deeper than you expected and a little gravelly from disuse, but nice nonetheless. You suck in a deep breath when you realize that you unintentionally stopped breathing during your nervous blathering.

 “Good,” he says when you get breathing under control again. You fluster slightly under the praise for such a basic task. “I’m not gonna take your lunch, kid.”

You visibly deflate at the flat-out rejection of your offer. You drop your head again, averting your gaze from Pete. You scratch at the side of your lunchbox with a fingernail. You wonder if the universe would be kind enough to swallow you up whole right about now, so you would not have to suffer from being such an embarrassment to yourself. 

It’s obvious to Frank that you’re mentally beating yourself up over nothing. He truly didn’t think it was a big deal at all that you were eavesdropping. The others might not have noticed because they’re stupid as shit, but Frank was a marine for crying out loud. He knew that you were there the entire time and didn’t care. If anything, he was more troubled by how you ran off so quickly when you met his gaze than you eavesdropping. And even then, he chalked it up to you being afraid of him or something along those lines.

Now, he realizes that you're just a real shy thing. He also realizes that he’s hurt your feelings by not accepting your lunch. It’s sweet of you, to offer up your lunch simply because you felt bad that his got ruined and extremely generous of you, but Frank’s not going to take your lunch away from you like that. But, you look so crushed that he refused to.

Man, Frank is not good with dealing with shit like this at all.

You hear Pete sigh from beside you, but you stubbornly keep your gaze trained on your lap. 

“Look, kid,” he slowly says, thinking about the best way to phrase what he wants to say next. “I appreciate the offer, I really do, but I’ll live without eating lunch. Besides, wouldn’t you go hungry if I stole your food?” he reasons.

“It’s not stealing if I’m offering,” you mumble under your breath. Pete chuckles at your point, knowing he can’t argue with that. The sound helps to set your nerves a little more at ease. He has a nice laugh. You lift your head up. Out of your peripherals, you can see that Pete’s looking your way. You tilt your head to meet his gaze directly. You straighten out your spine to sit a little more confidently. “And I can always buy lunch later or make my brother share with me, but knowing him, he already scarfed his food down.”

That earns you another chuckle out of Pete. 

“That so?” he asks, raising a brow.

You angle your body towards Pete more and shift along the tops of the cinder blocks to inch a little closer to him. “I swear his stomach is a bottomless pit,” you playfully exaggerate, “I’ve never seen someone eat as much as he does.”

Pete nods, and a shadow of a smile crosses his face. 

You don’t allow yourself to get too carried away and veer the conversation back to the reason you came over in the first place. “Mr. Castiglione—”

“Pete,” he interjects. “Call me Pete.”

“Pete, please take my lunch. I can always buy myself food after I leave the construction site, and I know that doing this job leaves one pretty hungry if my brother is anything to go off of,” you place your lunchbox in the space between you, sliding it across the surface of the cinder blocks closer to Pete.

His dark eyes follow the movement of your hand before darting back up to your face. He goes quiet, and you worry that you may have overstepped until he sighs. 

“You’re not going to take no for an answer, are you?” he says, picking up your- admittedly childish- lunchbox with a large hand and placing it onto his lap.

A large grin stretches across your lips. “Nope,” you happily reply.

Despite himself, a smaller, more subdued smile forms on Frank’s lips. Your happiness is infectious. It’s a bit surprising to Frank, how genuinely happy you are that he accepted your offer. He didn’t think you had any ulterior motives when you originally approached him, but he didn’t expect you to be so delighted that he eventually relented and agreed to take your lunch.

“Thank you, then.”

Your large grin softens, and the corners of your eyes crinkle as you warmly smile at Frank. Frank can’t recall the last time someone looked at him so kindly, and suddenly, memories of his family flash throughout his mind. He can envision the same sort of smile on Lisa or Frank Jr.’s face.

“It’s no problem at all,” you say, sincerity dripping from your words. You truly do mean it. Sure, you may have to go a little out of your way to go and grab lunch after this, but it’s no big deal. Speaking of which, you should probably get going to do just that. And you should give time for Pete to eat: his lunch break won’t last forever. “I should probably go now,” you sheepishly say, raising a hand to rub the back of your neck.

You hop down from the pile of cinder blocks, wobbling slightly when you land on the ground. You dust off any debris that’s collected on your pants and look back up at Pete with a smile on your face. “I can grab my lunchbox from you tomorrow. I hope you enjoy the food I made.”

Pete nods at you. “Thank you, again,” he repeats, raising the metal container you gave him.

You wave him off. “Like I said before, it’s really no problem,” you assure with a smile. 

Assuming that’s the end of the conversation and not wanting to dawdle around for any longer, you nod at Pete before turning around to start walking in the direction of where your older brother is still seated. You only make it a few steps away when you suddenly realize that you never introduced yourself to Pete. Your face burns in embarrassment. You got so caught up in your nerves that you failed to tell him your name.

You pivot on your foot to face Pete again. Hearing the pause in your steps, the man tears his gaze away from the water and tilts his head your way. With his full attention back on you, you rush to introduce yourself and tell him your name.

Before he can reply, you hurry to say “I’ll see you tomorrow, Pete!” over your shoulder and scuttle off to your brother.

Frank watches as you rejoin your brother, taking a seat beside him and playfully bumping your shoulder against his. To himself, he quietly repeats your name. It’s not one he thinks he’ll forget.

He tears his gaze away from you and looks back at the lunch box you provided him with. With careful hands, he undoes the metal clasp to open it up. He slides the bento box out of the lunch pail onto his lap and cracks it open, placing the lid to his side. Frank can tell just by glancing over its contents that you put a lot of care into making it. Everything has its place: all the different items you’ve thrown in there are neatly organized, separated by the walls of the container.

He grabs the fork you’ve supplied and uses it to stab at the pasta you’ve made. It looks good, and when Frank shoves a forkful of it into his mouth, he can confirm that it tastes good too.

Lately, he’s been subsisting solely off of PB&Js and canned soup, so your food tastes almost heavenly in comparison. It’s been ages since Frank’s had a home-cooked meal: one that was cooked with love and all of that mushy nonsense. And although you certainly didn’t have Frank in mind when you made this food, he can still appreciate it just as much.

As he munches on the food you made, Frank looks out at the city skyline with his heart a little lighter than before.

He’s looking forward to tomorrow.